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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction.
Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have
their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe that
they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have crowns of
glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors will be
proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what is
right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we
regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates' friends in the
opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of
another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.' We are
not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard of utility or public
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